The winter update to Eve Online landed yesterday, adding new vessels, nebulas, UI improvements, balance changes and more. It's the first major update since the problematic Incarna earlier this year, which prompted a serious change of direction for CCP. CEO Hilmar Pétursson has previously apologised to Eve players for "losing sight of simple things." Crucible is supposed to represent a return to what Eve Online players love most: SPACESHIPS.

Those spaceships arrive in the form of four new new battlecruisers , designed with help from Eve fans. Graphical improvements include engine trails for ships, new background nebulae, a full portrait viewer for avatars and updated shaders for ships to them look even more detailed. The captain's quarters will now look different depending on what race you are, and ship spinning is back!

Among dozens and dozens of UI tweaks, Crucible will let players resize the interface. Tooltips that don't make sense and other annoyances that have bugged players for years have also been tackled in a collective effort to "not have the dumb," as CCP Soundwave puts it in a new blog post . "If you liked this release, all of next year should be right up your alley," he writes. "If it's old, rusty and not in good shape, there is a chance it will be looked at."

The long, long list of changes made by the Crucible update are available on the Eve Online Crucible site , and there's even more detail in the official patch notes . What do you think of the update so far? We'll be interviewing CCP later today. What would you like us to ask?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom stopped being a productive human being when he realised that the beige box under his desk could play Alpha Centauri. After Deus Ex and Diablo 2 he realised he was cursed to play amazing PC games forever. He started writing about them for PC Gamer about six years ago, and is now UK web ed.